


making waves in pitch black sand

by bereft_of_frogs



Series: let the human in (whumptober 2020) [13]
Category: Into the Night (TV 2020)
Genre: (minor) - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Apocalypse, Earthquakes, Gen, Head Injury, Natural Disasters, Whump, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:56:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27339793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bereft_of_frogs/pseuds/bereft_of_frogs
Summary: They just can't get a damned break, can they?In the midst of the natural-disaster-to-end-all-natural disasters, luck just had to toss another one at our small band of survivors.
Series: let the human in (whumptober 2020) [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993756
Kudos: 3
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	making waves in pitch black sand

**Author's Note:**

> written for whumptober 2020, day 27: Who Had Natural Disasters on their 2020 Bingo Card? (earthquake) 
> 
> Warnings: just a little blood, nothing serious
> 
> fic title: 'Crystals', Of Monsters and Men

Even though the world was coming to an end, there were a great many things that will spin on. All of humanity, with a few exceptions, may have collapsed to the ground and dragged their entire civilization with them, but there are still the winds, the currents of the waters, and the shifting of the earth. Things that will continue even if all life is snuffed out. There will still be storms. There will still be waves and tides.

The tectonic plates crash and slide against each other.

“Canned food, remember,” Sylvie says. “Horst says-”

“I know, I know,” Ines replies, shoving them into the bag. “What about the stuff that’s already mostly preservatives? The DNA is probably already pretty altered.”

“I don’t know, if you come across any of it, just grab it. It can’t hurt, right?” Sylvie shrugs. “We’ll see what Horst says.”

“We’re going to survive off of gross canned vegetables and potato chips.” Ines huffs. “I’m going to get a breakout.”

Sylvie laughs, reaching for the next can on the shelf. It slides away from her and it takes another second for her brain to catch up to what’s going on.

The ground shakes beneath them. It takes another second for her to name what’s happening - earthquake.

“Ines, take cover!”

Something heavy and sharp knocks against her forehead, just enough to sting. Sylvie instinctively folds, throwing her hands over her head for protection. She slides back until she’s against a wall at least as the floor rolls, knocking over metal shelving and cabinets and cans raining down around them. Distantly she hears the building groan, glass shattering.

Slowly, the shaking stops. Her head is throbbing where the debris struck, and her heart is beating fast in her chest. But she takes a deep breath and rises from her position on the floor.

“Sylvie! Sylvie!” Ines is crying out. “Fuck!”

“I’m fine.” She has to kick aside the shattered remains of a shelf that had fallen and broken on the floor. _Good thing I wasn’t under that,_ she thinks casually.

Ines comes into view and freezes. “Oh my God, Sylvie, your head.”

“It’s fine,” she quickly says, keeping her hand clamped tight over the center of the sting.

“Fuck, there’s blood all over your face.”

“It’s _fine_. Something knocked into me, it wasn’t that heavy, head wounds always bleed a lot, it barely even hurts-”

“What the fuck are we going to do?”

“Grab the stuff. We should probably get out of the building in case there’s another aftershock-”

“Aftershock?!”

“Calm down,” Sylvie orders, perhaps a bit harshly. Ines shuts her mouth and bites her lip. “It’s fine. Just move quickly but calmly. Help my grab our stuff.”

They gather the spilled cans and take everything they can - Ines shaking, Sylvie with one hand still pressed to her forehead. It takes a bit more effort to kick debris out of the way to get to the door. When they’re out, Ines breathes in a gasp of the cold night air.

“Christ, I didn’t think we’d have to deal with _earthquakes_ , of all things,” Ines says. “Like are you kidding me? Could we get a break or something?”

“I’m honestly not surprised anymore.” Sylvie cracks a half smile. “I’m sure we’ll come across a volcano at some point. Or a tornado, sea monsters, killer bees. I’m not sure anything would really surprise me at this point.”

“I think I’d be pretty surprised about the sea monster.”

They meet Osman halfway across the tarmac. “You two all right?”

“We’re okay, how’s everyone else?”

“Fine, most everyone was outside. Horst and I are just grabbing some mechanical equipment, we’re almost ready to go.”

“We got all the food we could.”

Osman nods up at Sylvie’s forehead. “Laura’s with Jakub on the wing. She should be able to help with that.”

“Thanks.” He nods and hurries back towards one of the buildings.

Osman’s calm has gone a long way in calming Ines down. She doesn’t look so panicked as they head back and find Laura and Jakub refueling the jet.

“I’m fine,” Sylvie says quickly to head off their panic. “Just a cut, it looks way worse than it is. Well, I’m assuming, given the look on Ines’s face. Haven’t exactly seen a mirror.” Ines is still shaking, looking between them.

“I’ll get you an ice pack and a towel,” Laura says. “Luckily we found a first aid kit with some extra supplies. Follow me.”

They follow her up into the cabin and Laura pops the ice pack, wrapping it in a towel. She takes a glance at the cut

“Before you say anything, it’s fine,” Sylvie says as they enter the cockpit. “I’ve already got it cleared from Laura. Barely a scratch.”

Mathieu raises his eyebrows. “I wasn’t going to say anything.” Horst gets up and lets her sit in the left-hand seat.

“So? We’ve got our course plotted out?”

“We think so. Terenzio still wants us to stop in Belgium, at NATO. We should make that in a straight shot. And then there will be the question of where we go from there, if we can find some kind of shelter.” He looks down at their charts again. “Our planning was interrupted by the earthquake. But we’ll figure that out at the next stop.”

“But can we like…” Ines asks hesitantly. “Takeoff? Isn’t that dangerous?”

There’s a moment where there’s silence. More of the passengers have gathered around. Zara nudges Dominik back towards their seats. Everyone looks at the two of them. Sylvie takes a moment to consider it. She doesn’t think so, but then again, she’s only been flying airplanes for like a day. So she shrugs and looks to Mathieu.

He stows the charts. “Technically, there might problems. _Might_. But it’s unlikely and the worst we’d be looking at is structural damage to the runways, since we don’t have to worry about electricity or communications with the tower.”

“Structural damage?” Terenzio presses forward. “What do you mean structural damage?”

Mathieu hesitates. “Just cracks, shifting of the earth. Under normal circumstances, they’d check the runways before allowing us on them, they’d confer with authorities to see if there would be aftershocks…but these are not normal circumstances. So…”

“But what do we do?”

“We have to take off,” Sylvie says. She removes the icepack from her forehead. There’s less blood on the towel this time. As she suspected, head wounds always look much worse than they are. Even the pain is fading, just a bit of a sting.

“But if there’s an aftershock?” Ines says. “What about then?”

“We can takeoff during an earthquake,” Mathieu tries to reassure her. “As long as the runway’s-”

“Yes, as long as the runway’s not damaged but what if-”

“Okay,” Horst says, more calmly. “I think we’re all just freaking out. Earthquakes are actually not unusual here, and this one didn’t feel particularly strong. All our nerves are just fried, I’m sure it will be fine.”

“The chances are small,” Mathieu says. “Like Horst says, this wasn’t particularly strong, the runways probably fine.”

“And we don’t have a choice,” Sylvie says firmly. “We can’t wait, and no one’s coming to check, and we wouldn’t be able to fix the runway even if it was damaged. So. We have to go. And soon, if we want to keep ahead of the sun.”

Ines still looks worried. The others, uncertain.

Jakub hops into the cabin. “We’re all fueled up. Osman’s stowing the truck. We ready to go?” He looks around at their drawn faces. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Laura says, with a glance around that says she’s speaking for all of them. “We were shaken up by the earthquake. But we’re ready to go.”

The passengers have been pacified, for now. They’re lined up on the runway, with the doors shut and the engines powering up.

“Our other option,” Mathieu says carefully. “is a short-field takeoff.”

“I was surprised you didn’t mention the possibility.”

Mathieu winces. “It only occurred to me towards the end. And by that point, everyone was in such a panic, I didn’t want to make it worse again. I feel like I shouldn’t have mentioned anything at all.”

Sylvie shrugs. “They wanted to be more involved.”

“They didn’t know what that meant.”

She laughs. “True.” They didn’t understand, how they were balancing the risks. How many risks there were to balance, every second they were in this jet. How easily everything could fall apart. Most of them, if they actually got what they wanted, if they actually knew what decisions were required every minute, if they knew how easily their fragile existence could unravel, they would go insane.

Their options are to risk that the runway has been damaged and takeoff normally, or risk performing a complicated short-field takeoff with only one fully trained pilot, who was exhausted and injured.

“It’s your call,” Sylvie says gently. “Because I can’t help with that.” The implication hidden in her words is ‘you better be sure that you’re up for it.’ Mathieu nods.

“Let me think…let me think about this.” They’re silent for a minute or so. “I think we should play it safe, perform the normal landing and trust there isn’t major damage ahead of us,” Mathieu finally says. “It wasn’t so bad right? The earthquake?”

Sylvie has absolutely no way to know. She’d never been in an earthquake before. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“Yes. We’ll be fine.”

“Ready?” Sylvie says, hand hovering over the throttle.

Mathieu nods. “Go.”

**Author's Note:**

> Note! I know...almost nothing about aviation. All information comes from desperate digging around forums and aviation articles (with special thanks to aviation/pilot youtube, super helpful) trying to figure out if I fic concept will work, so I apologize for any inaccuracies. There was also a certain point where I was like...googling fault lines to see if it would work before I was just sort of like...eh, close enough.
> 
> Given how 2020's going, I didn't think it would be that ridiculous for the disasters to just start...compounding. Layering one on top of the other. It's a #mood. This is another one of my life....vague AUs where I just like, add a stop or two to complicate matters. XD 
> 
> As always, kudos/comments/shares/frogs always appreciated! I hope you all enjoyed! Happy Friday! <3


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